


Laughter from his Mouth

by HSavinien



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, Love, M/M, Music, POV Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Pre-Canon, Sex, Slice of Life, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26619289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien/pseuds/HSavinien
Summary: Niccolò has two goals for the day. 1) Make Yusuf laugh...
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 160





	Laughter from his Mouth

Yusuf’s breath comes in gasps, his chest heaves with half formed peals of laughter whenever he has air enough. His head rolls back on the floor, eyes sparkling up at Niccolò, who grins down at him from where he is propped on his elbows. It is only a song, not so funny as all that, but perfectly pitched to Yusuf’s sense of humor. Nico hummed it to himself all the way home from the market to remember it, and pulled Yusuf close to sit beside him on their step and sang it to him before he could lose the words, waving his hands illustratively at the part where the lovers kiss beneath the nose of the jealous husband. 

“Saucy,” Yusuf tells him, when he can breathe enough for speech. “How could you celebrate such breaking of vows between husband and wife?”

“If he is such a fool as to keep a lady from true love and to fall for such a trick besides, I do not recognize his claim to her,” Nico informs him solemnly. “I had rather see the lady happy.”

“True, true,” Yusuf agrees. “Either of my sisters would have eaten such as that Don for breakfast and taken the servingman as husband within the week.”

“And good for them,” Nico says. Yusuf’s cheeks are ruddy from laughter, his teeth flashing, and his eyes so warm a brown that Nico’s near breathless himself. This is all he wanted, all the way home. He loves to make Yusuf laugh, make him smile in the way that crinkles the corners of his eyes and shows his dimples even under his beard. 

He turns, leans over Yusuf to kiss him, to sup the laughter from his mouth. Yusuf’s tongue tastes of honey, mint, and vinegar from the sekanjabin he mixed into their water jar fresh this morning, and Nico will never be quenched on him. They trade kisses with unhurried fervor.

Yusuf hums, slides warm fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and wraps his other hand around Nico’s hip.

“انگبین” Nico murmurs against Yusuf’s throat. He sets his teeth to the skin over Yusuf’s pulse, breathes in the scent of him as he worries up a bruise and watches it pale from red to yellow to gone in a moment. Yusuf smells of the bread he baked today and a little of the over-sweetness of the drying figs on their racks in the sun and of himself. 

Yusuf tips his head to press kisses to Nico’s hair. “My lark, my songbird, it is not spring,” he says, voice rich with laughter. “Your courting is out of season.”

Nico nips his collarbone. “Would you complain of it?”

“Oh, never for long.” His hands rest gentle between Nico’s shoulders and at his waist, tugging lightly at his sash.

Niccolò removes his mouth from Yusuf with some regret. He unknots his sash and tosses it out of the way, sheds his kaftan and kicks off his boots, leaving him in only his linens. He takes advantage of Yusuf’s comfortable sprawl to steal another kiss. Yusuf has far fewer layers, having spent the day in the house with no need to cover himself for the market. Nico steals a hand up to loosen Yusuf’s shirt, trace lines underneath from navel to chest and he gets stuck there, feeling the rise and fall of Yusuf as he breathes.

“It was a bad night,” Nico says, the hurt from it washing through him without warning, though it feels like sacrilege to sour their contentment. “You feel whole again?”

Yusuf’s hand clasps Nico’s upon his breastbone. “I am well, it is well. I had all the day to rest, though I healed long before sunrise. My soul, do not trouble yourself.”

Niccolò’s tongue clamps between his teeth, his throat clenches at the thought of it, of Yusuf’s body dark-spattered under the moon. They had been surprised, ambushed separately as Nico went to relieve himself. The attackers had left Niccolò for dead after a single blow and he had been up again and after them as soon as his head mended, but not in time to prevent Yusuf’s messier demise. Nico kept them off Yusuf’s body until he revived, then the two of them had dealt with the rest of the bandits. The grain storage for the town was safe and whoever had the watch tonight would have an easier time of it. He breathes out roughly.

“I know, my love,” Yusuf says, hands in his hair, thumbs tracing his cheekbones. “And you?”

“I am sound. The whole market sent their thanks for our deeds last night,” he adds. “I told them you would be well again soon and was it not lucky that the bandits did not come upon us all at once.”

Yusuf chuckles. “How lucky indeed that I have an immortal man at my back, to safeguard me when we are not so fortunate as that.” He pulls Nico in, leaning up to press their mouths together again.

Nico sighs against him. “This was not my plan today,” he admits. “I had not meant to recall past sorrow, only to make you laugh and love you to distraction.”

“Oh, well then,” Yusuf says. “As we both agree we are hale and whole, I shall relinquish you to the rest of your task!” He releases Nico and sprawls, arms outstretched and grinning.

Nico loves him beyond human reckoning. 

He laughs and sets his hands on his beloved again, tracing Yusuf from shoulder to hip and back up, bowing over him to nose his shirt out of the way and taste over his ribs. He is whole, he is still healed. Yusuf sighs, his skin under Nico’s mouth smooth and unmarked and faintly salty. Yusuf murmurs appreciation, tipping his head to watch. Nico loves Yusuf’s voice, loves his eyes on him, but right now even more than those things, he wants Yusuf lost to pleasure, his words escaped and his head thrown back in abandon.

Yusuf groans when Nico takes him into his mouth and gives him heat and slick and gradually increasing speed with lips and tongue and throat. He squirms, tensing, against the press of Nico’s knuckle at the sweat-damp place behind his stones. Nico shivers happily as Yusuf finally loses the battle for stillness and his hand lands on Nico’s head, adjusting his rhythm with frantic, gentle fingers. He spills on a shout that is half Niccolò’s name and half nonsense and all the tension in him drains like an upended bowl.

Nico slides up to blanket Yusuf, never mind the sweat sticking them together now. Yusuf wraps both arms around him to squeeze him tight.

“My own,” Yusuf says, burying his face in Nico’s hair.

“You are precious to me,” Nico says into his chest. “Beyond all measure.”

“And you to me, always.”

**Author's Note:**

> Nicky's song is a Persian version of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSKjXHicxA4


End file.
